Conditioning, Confusion And Condemnation - Devil's Deception Schemes

Be Delivered from Deception

Alright. We begin with our verse this morning in John 1:4

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Let us pray….

Lord JESUS, you are the light of the world, shine forth your light upon our lives this morning, dispel the darkness in our hearts and illuminate our minds with your truths this morning. IN your name we pray.. Amen..

Author HP Love Craft wrote this quote:

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

I bring this up because I realized that many Christians and well as many people fear what they do not know. And one of the unknows they fear is SATAN.

And Satan wants it that way, so that he can continue to rule in your minds. Fear debilitates, fear stops us from accelerating, fear stunts our spiritual growth, fear is the opposite of FAITH.

So today I want us to shed light on the ruler of darkness. To expose His character and reveal his intentions. Light exposes darkness. And when the light of JESUS exposes Satan – he is plain to see – in clear view for everyone to see who he really is.

You know, statistics will show that many people don’t believe in Satan. Or in the idea of a devil. They think he is a made up character. A fictional character in books and movies. That’s the second thing that Satan wants us to believe. That he’s not real.

But he is real. Satan is a created being. An angel who has fallen from heaven for his desire to be like GOD or as other scholars would put it to be GOD.

Isaiah 14:12-15 says this:

How you have fallen from heaven,

morning star, son of the dawn!

You have been cast down to the earth,

you who once laid low the nations!

You said in your heart,

“I will ascend to the heavens;

I will raise my throne

above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.”

But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,

to the depths of the pit.

And so what does SATAN do on EARTH:

2 Corinthians 4:4

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers,

so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays

the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

And we are going to camp here to talk about how Satan blinds the minds of people and he does that through what I call conditioning. Say conditioning.

CONDITIONING is a process of training or accustoming a person to believe a certain way or to accept certain ideologies.

Conditioning is a very clever way the devil makes people believe what is essentially bad to appear good – and when people have bought in to the idea. There is no turning back. Conditioning is the first step to deception. And the devil has been doing this in many cultures, industries, nations.

Nowadays kids are being conditioned to believe that monsters, beasts, and the like maybe evil and bad from the outside but are good in the inside or have good in them. Vampires, Zombies are cool – infact Halloween has evolved into becoming a major holiday where mischievous behavior, dressing up as your favorite underworld character, and spooky decorations around malls, offices and schools are celebrated and well attended. Retailers call this the Halloween CREEP phenomenon that drives retail sales of evil character costumes, dark or underworld themed parties events and the like.

Men, Women and Children are now being desensitized to the work of satan and his minions.

Conditioning is entrenched in society – when you see your friend cheat in his or her relationship – you too become curious about it and then try it out yourself.

People are conditioned to believe there is no heaven there is certainly no hell. And you can do whatever you want. We are conditioned to believe that to be successful in this world, you need to comply to what the world dictates. To do wrong is normal – corruption, bribery, extortion – all of this ARE NORMAL and OKAY! That’s conditioning. That to get out of trouble, all you have to do is PAY-UP!

CONFUSION - refers to a state of mental or emotional disorientation where a person struggles to discern truth, direction, or God’s will. It often stems from a lack of clarity and spiritual attacks designed to distract and destabilize faith.